Step by step painting of Vidya Balan

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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Being in India, I do understand how difficult it can be for the beginners here, to buy the right material initially.

So here is the list of things you would need for your """ FIRST oil painting. """

1. Oil Paints:
'Camlin Artist oil colors tube set'. It is a set of 12 shades, each 9ml tube. Enough to start your first painting.
You get student grade paint tubes as well., but there is not much difference in the price. So I would suggest Artist grade even for students.

c) Fan Brush: Size 4 fan brush. You can buy them online from www.flipkart.com OR www.himalayafineart.com.

You can do without Fan brush if you dont find any, but these are really good for blending purpose.

3. Canvas. First the warnings...
a) You should never paint on a regular sketch book paper, or any other paper. Paper absorbs all the oil from the Oil paints.. thus giving it a pathetic look and would demotivate you completely. Always buy canvas board for your Oil Paintings. Even if you are making your first.
b) Second warning: Dont use canvas pads for actual paintings (They are cheaper than canvas boards... but they and not primed properly and should be used only to practice certain objects you are aiming to put on the canvas. For eg if i am making a floral paintnig on canvas board, i might want to try out different color combinations for those flowers. For trying these things, you should use canvas pads... THATS ALL !!

So back to canvas boards: The sizes of canvas boards start even at 6 by 8 inches. But i would suggest that you buy atleast a 12 by 16 inch canvas for your first 2-3 paintings. You can buy 'Fine art Canvas boards'. These are good for both oil and acrylic colors.

4. Medium: You will need to buy 2 things.

a) 'Camel Distilled Turpentine' 60ml bottle.

b) 'Camel Purified Linseed Oil' again 60 ml bottle.

A mix of these two would be used as a medium here. Pour one cap full of the turpentine and add 5 to 7 drops of linseed oil to it. This would be your lean medium. You would understand these terms better at later stages.

5. Solvent: These would be used to wash your brushes after using them - to remove oil paints from them.

You can go to a local hardware store and ask for turpentine. A regular 250 ml turpentine would be sufficient.

6. Palette: You can use normal disposable plates for this purpose for atleast first 5 paintings. The disposable plates should be the ones with aluminium foil look, or the ones made of plastic. Dont use paper plate as it will absorb the oil from the oil paints.

7. You will also need a rag and few plastic cups for keeping your medium.

8. A Big Bottle to keep your solvent to clean brushes

All of these brands are available in India. Even on some websites like Flipkart or Himalayafineart.

An optional item for first five paintings would be 'Easle'. Easle is a stand where your can place your canvas vertically and paint without having to bend. But i guess it can wait till u are sure of your interests as it is a bigger investment than the other material and it needs a lot of analysis before your purchase.